Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“My daughter?” he asked, squinting at her.
She gestured to her right, and when I checked, Hannah was there, clearly lecturing her brother, who had his head tipped back, mask still off, but with a curl to his lip that told me whatever she had done was expected and therefore appreciated. Jake was beside him, standing there glancing at people as they walked by, looking more like he was guarding Kola than anything else. I had no idea what was going on, but something was off.
“Are you listening to me?” Jen snapped.
“Yes,” Sam told her. “What did my daughter do?”
“My friend Julie, Julie Oliver, I introduced you when you came in,” she explained. “Well, I guess she and Kola were talking, and he walked away in the middle of their conversation. I’m not sure why. But she wanted to tell him something else, and when she saw him leave the house to go sit with you, she asked me to call him in.”
“This is a really involved explanation for––”
“I know,” she snapped, “but I came in the middle of it myself.”
“Okay,” Sam said flatly.
She huffed out a breath. “I was on my way out to get Kola, when all of a sudden Hannah comes into the kitchen and tells Julie to keep her skanky-ass hands off her brother.”
“Huh,” was all Sam said.
“Samuel Thomas Kage!” Jen yelled at him. “In my kitchen, she insults my friend, loudly, making a scene, and when Julie said she’d talk to Kola herself, Hannah says, 'Like hell you will,' and bumps her hard enough that she nearly knocked her into the refrigerator.”
“Huh,” he repeated.
“Are you kidding?” She was flabbergasted; it was there in her voice.
“Why would Hannah do that?” I asked Jen.
“I’m sure I have no––”
“That doesn’t sound like Hannah at all,” Sam informed Jen. “Unless your pal Julie did something to Kola that Hannah didn’t like.”
“Which would have been what, Sam?”
“I don’t know,” Sam answered. “Maybe you need to ask Julie.”
“Sam, both your kids are being really rude to––”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that something happened, and while my son would never hit a woman, my daughter would have no such concern.”
“Sam, you––”
“Excuse me,” he growled, giving my hand a squeeze before letting me go and crossing toward his kids.
“Kola’s being rude, and Hannah—I mean, Jory, she pushed one of my guests.”
“Which we need to get to the bottom of, don’t you think?”
I watched as Sam reached his kids, and Hannah pointed at Kola, then herself, and waggled her finger behind her toward the house, and I was guessing, Julie Oliver.
Instantly, I saw Sam’s brows furrow, and he took hold of Kola’s bicep and walked him a few feet away while Hannah stood with Jake. Moments later, Ally walked up to them with a plate of cupcakes and cookies that Hannah had apparently abandoned at the table. Hannah shook her head when Ally offered it to her, and when Ally tried to push the plate at her a second time, Hannah put up both hands. When Ally turned away, Hannah stopped her, hugged her, and it was clear that the two of them were good even though my daughter was not accepting dessert.
“So now your kid is too good to take home my dessert,” Jen barked at me.
“Jen, clearly something went––”
“Bye, Jen,” a man announced, charging up beside her. “I hope you got one more guest room in this place, because Julie’s stayin’ with you.”
“Dave, what in the world are you––”
“I was gonna yell at that kid in your kitchen for hip-checking my wife when I heard what she was saying about her brother. What the fuck?”
“Dave, you ––”
“No,” he was adamant as he leaned in, kissed her cheek, and then started across the lawn toward the long row of cars at the end of the drive.
“What the hell is happening?” Jen asked, and we both watched as Dave, Julie Oliver’s husband, got in an enormous pickup, gunned the motor, threw up gravel and dust, fishtailed for a moment and was then gone, driving much too fast down the suburban street away from the house.
I turned slowly to Jen.
“What? What’s with the look and––oh,” she gasped, covering her face with her hand as Hannah and Jake joined us.
“I tell you what,” Hannah snarled under her breath, “if that skanky-ass whore takes one step off that deck to come down here to try and talk to Kola again, I will put my fist through her face. Not in her face, you understand, but through.”
Hannah was furious; it was there in the way she was shaking, breathing in and out of her nose, and the clench of her jaw.
“What happened?” I asked Jake.
“Mrs. Oliver pushed her way into the bathroom when K was coming out, and she tried to…” He trailed off, glancing at Jen and then back to me. “Well, you know what she tried to do.”